HI i am in charge of our haunts monster design. www.scvhaunt.com THis year once again we are really looking to step up our costumes, and so i was wondering if anyone had any unique and different costume/ character ideas. Our overall theme is Nightmares so anything pretty much works thanks !!!

Silicone masks- Check out CFX they cater to haunts, really great stuff

Gore Galore's Big costumes and creature carts are awesome as well.

If you are looking for inspiration as opposed to products (Request was a bit vague)
Then look outside of the haunt box. Look at Cirque de Solei or broadway shows (Lion king or Starlight express ) they make costumes all the time and have a different perspective than the normal haunted house point of view.
Stilts are a neat idea for haunts and nothing fills a hallway like a stilt monster.
It would be easier to help you if we had a direction, give us a concept and Im sure many more would help.
Allen H

A teenage, Vampire Cheerleader..who is actually a 35 yr. old 350 pound guy?
Short skirt, razor stubble from "Hell", speaking in a falsetto, saying "Go Fight Win, TEAM!"
and of course trying to bounce around as those words are spoken.

I can't for the life of me remember the name of the movie, but how about make it kinda like the one with Jennifer Lopez and how she can enter the mind of a killer to find a child. Have it be the total weird extreme opposite. Have the set as things that would be weird and backwards. Having kinda like what Jim is saying, having older people playing younger roles. Have things upside down. Have more things coming from higher up and lower down. Total opposite. Have pretty gardens that go terrible wrong and become the opposite. Have some people have 2 costumes on. half being good and other half being bad. Make it hazy, cloudy confusing. I could go on and on...but make it weird opposite extreme.

I can't for the life of me remember the name of the movie, but how about make it kinda like the one with Jennifer Lopez and how she can enter the mind of a killer to find a child. Have it be the total weird extreme opposite. Have the set as things that would be weird and backwards. Having kinda like what Jim is saying, having older people playing younger roles. Have things upside down. Have more things coming from higher up and lower down. Total opposite. Have pretty gardens that go terrible wrong and become the opposite. Have some people have 2 costumes on. half being good and other half being bad. Make it hazy, cloudy confusing. I could go on and on...but make it weird opposite extreme.

Find an item or some costume piece like a hat, prop, or mask and use it as the bases for a character. Let your imagination fill in the gaps.
We made some foam latex masks last year for our haunt and to sell that were a little different, and they made the bases of some great characters this year. We used one as the bases of a character called Gourdo The Pumpkin Patch Pirate. He was an excellent cue line character cause people didn't know what to make of him. People love to attach identities to characters 'Hey, it's that guy from that movie... blah, blah, blah'. It makes them more comfortable if they know the character. If you can create characters that bare little or no resemblance to anything they may identify it throws them off. They don't know what to expect out of the character.
Check out our masks at http://www.wickadella.com/masks.html